Day 111 - 30 Mar 95 - Page 11

     
     1        even for the things that happen in his or her absence at an
     2        abattoir.
     3
     4   MR. MORRIS:  So you are the No. 1 in the plant; is that
     5        correct?  Are you the No. 1 in the plant as regards public
     6        health considerations?
     7        A.  Yes.  Well, No. 1, it is a funny expression.
     8
     9   Q.   On the ground?
    10
    11   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  She is doing perfectly well.
    12        A.  The Official Veterinary Surgeon is responsible for the
    13        enforcement of the regulations and also responsible for
    14        what happens and what comes out of that plant from a public
    15        health point of view.  From this point of view, I would
    16        like to explain what I am looking for when I am at the
    17        plant?  What are my worries?
    18
    19        My first worries are obviously animal welfare.  I look at
    20        animal welfare, how the animals are treated before they are
         killed.  This refers only to the live animals, obviously.
    22        I also do an antimortem health inspection on the animals,
    23        looking for signs of any diseases that might be
    24        communicable to humans or transmissible to humans through
    25        meat or the way the meat is handled at the abattoir.
    26
    27        I look for signs of these diseases.  I look for signs of
    28        extreme contamination of animals that might risk the
    29        hygiene of the slaughtering process.  During the slaughter
    30        I look for any risks to hygienic slaughtering process.  At
    31        the antemortem examination I usually worry about signs of
    32        disease that might be transferable to humans.
    33
    34        After the animal has been killed, I look for signs of
    35        unhygienic slaughtering practices, or signs of disease or
    36        presence of bacteria in the carcass.  The diseases that
    37        I am looking for in the UK at the moment would be TB -- we
    38        have a very serious epidemic in the southwest of England
    39        right now -- and we would be definitely looking for very
    40        serious signs of TB in cattle.  We would be looking for
         signs of for brucellosis which is not eradicated which is a
    42        zoonotic disease, a disease that is communicable to humans
    43        from animals.
    44
    45        We would be looking for signs of septicaemia, generalised
    46        bacterial diseases that might, for example, as a result of
    47        severe mastitis in a milking animal, and a lot of the
    48        milking animals that come through the slaughterhouses are
    49        culled from milking herds because they have mastitis.  We
    50        are obviously looking for signs of generalised bacterial 
    51        infection in the animal as a result of mastitis. 
    52 
    53        Those are the main worries that I would have at the
    54        moment.  There is a general notice, obviously, at all
    55        abattoirs in the UK at the moment to look for signs of BSE,
    56        the transmissible spongiform ecephalitis in cows.  Those
    57        would be my main worries at the lairage.  Inside the
    58        lairage my worries would be related particularly to
    59        contamination by gut contents, intestinal contents of the
    60        animals which is by far the biggest worry as far as the